One Foot in Paradise (Philosophical Fragments)

All things in this world are gray. They are all shades and shadows of ultimate existence. Would we even know pure white, if we were to see it? Is there really such a thing as complete blackness?

There can only be one unlimited existence – if there were two, they could not be separated out from one another, for that would require limits. All other existence must be limited. But perfect existence need not be unlimited. Perfection is attained when actual existence reaches its limits – when all potential is fulfilled. A thing's limits determine its potential existence. If morality is black and white, then perfect existence is the purest white; anything imperfect is a shade of gray, because it also contains nonexistence, blackness, within its limits.

A thing's identity is determined by its limits; we may call such a thing an entity. One entity may contain within its limits the limits of another entity. So all existence within the limits of the second entity is also contained within the limits of the first. A human body is an identifiable entity; so is a human heart. The limits of the heart are contained within the limits of the body; thus, the heart's existence belongs also to the body, and a part of the body's existence belongs also to the heart.

Entity 2 is part of entity 1; Everything within it's limits also belongs to entity 1. Entity 3 has no part in entities 1 or 2.

God is unlimited existence. His only limit (if it can even be called such) is existence itself – thus, all existence belongs to God, and is part of His existence; all nonexistence (tohu) is not part of Him, for it falls outside of His only limit. Thus it can be said, “God is all there is,” and it can said of anything that exists, “This is part of God.” However, it cannot be said of any limited entity, “This is God,” except in a limited sense, for God's existence extends beyond that entity's limits. Nor can it be said of any imperfect entity, “This is God,” except in an imperfect sense, for all nonexistence falls outside His limits.

Just as there can only be one unlimited entity, there can likewise only be one unlimited nonentity. Call it the Void. As all existence belongs to God, all nonexistence belongs to the Void. God has no part in the Void, and the Void has no part in God. All perfect entities are fully part of God, and have no part in the Void; no entity is fully part of the Void, for the Void is nonexistence itself. So there really is no such thing as complete blackness, for the Void is not an entity; it does not exist, but rather it nonexists.

Gray things, imperfect entities, have therefore a strange dual nature – that in them which is part of God, and that in them which is part of the Void. Can we place such a thing within God's existence? We must, for they have existence, and all existence belongs to God. Yet they must also be placed within the Void, for they also contain nonexistence. They exist as part of God; they nonexist as part of the Void.

The imperfect entity belongs to both God and the Void, even though both God and the Void have no part in one another - it is both part of God, and apart from God.

We have one foot in Paradise, and one foot in the Grave.